The Truth About Insanity
by Simply Complex Mind
Summary: Pre/During-Series. "I never thought I'd want that insanity back. But I'd die for it now." Asking the question of what love has to do with it & why we let it spiral out of our control. Soon-to-be Royai; possible Family/Parental!Fic. R&R! More info inside.


_**Summary:** Pre/During-Series. "I never thought I'd want that insanity back. But I'd die for it now." Asking the question of what love has to do with it & why we let it spiral out of our control. Because really, why do we put ourselves through this crap? Roy Mustang, at the tender age of fourteen, didn't understand until it was too late that "love" is not that canned garbage in the movies but is, essentially, a code word for "insanity"; the phrase, "madly in love," had to come from somewhere. But when you're in love, and delving into the insanity more deeply than you imagined, what do you do even when you know you're going crazy? What if you don't want to stop? And what if the other half of the relationship does? Eventual Royai. Possible Family/Parental!Fic (may be a companion piece/prequel of sorts to the parental story I write later)_

_**Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist or the characters therein.**_

_Author's Note at the end of the chapter._

**EDIT: Typos fixed!!! (as of August 7, 2009)**

*** ~ . : T h e T r u t h A b o u t I n s a n i t y : . ~ ***

_Written By: Simply Complex Mind_

Date: Friday, July 24, 2009

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_**Prologue: No Title For This New Insanity**_

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_"You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad." --Aldous Huxley_

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_I always questioned why Edward and Alphonse tried to bring back their mother. _

_Was it out of love? _

_Fear? _

_A desire to recapture the past?_

_It took me a long time to realize that I could empathize with any of those three reasons, and probably more._

_After all, I have tried to recapture the one thing in my life that was right and good, too. _

_I still am. _

_Albeit, I didn't use alchemy to do so, at least not directly. But regrets come from more than just failed attempts and broken promises. _

_I once heard the semi-wise words that if you always spoke the truth, you would never have any regrets in life. If you lived by both yourself and others in an honest fashion, then all would fall into place._

_What a load of crap._

_Truth does more than hurt. It does more than kill, or nurture, or protect, or destroy._

_It can cause insanity, both temporary and permanent. And let me tell you, insanity comes in several guises._

_The most intense—__subtle yet overt, breathtaking yet humbling—of which is love._

_But more than anything, it's the knowing that you are in love that makes you go crazy. It's uncontrollable, unfathomable, and irrational to a fault._

_But it feels so amazing._

_And just what the hell are you supposed to do about something like that?_

* * *

Roy sighed as he stooped down and grabbed yet _another_ pebble from the dark ground. He let loose a frustrated sigh before chucking said rock at the second story window above him.

_Clink_. The pebble glanced off the shadowed glass.

He nearly groaned.

_Clank_. The second, slightly larger stone made a more respectable impact on the silence around him.

"For crying out—_Jules_! Wake _up. . ._"

_Okay_, Roy thought, breathing deeply before exhaling sharply. _It's all in the wrist, right? Okay. . ._ The teenager crouched low on the ground, searching avidly for the prime Weapon of Choice. His dark hair and coat made him nearly indistinguishable from the almost-black landscaping around him; how he managed to even find the correct house only God knew. But there he was, in the middle of spring in some backwoods town at near midnight, scrounging for a rock—no, a _stone_, or a freaking _boulder_, if that's what it took—in some strange yard with an ominous house looming skyward over his head.

If only Mustang, Sr. could see his son now.

"Of all the freaking nights for there to be no moon," Roy grumbled to himself irritably. "No one ever stops to think about street lights in smalls towns in the middle of the freaking country, _noo—_ah-ha!"

Roy clenched his Treasure in his hand before giving it an experimental toss. _Perfect_.

Weighing the stone carefully, Roy hurled it at the poor, unsuspecting window with a flick of his wrist.

_Thunk_. The grey rock made solid (loud) impact with the glass; Roy watched as it clattered noisily across the sill before skittering down the side of the house and dancing harmlessly into the bushes below.

He was broken from his reverie by the shifting of cotton and quiet sliding of the window being pushed open.

"_Roy_?!," a teenaged girl frowned down at him through the screen. She pushed against it slightly with her hands. "What the _hell_ are you doing here?"

Roy rolled his eyes, which unfortunately for him, did not go unnoticed by the girl above him, despite the lack of light.

"Oh, you know me, I just enjoy the occasional midnight stroll through the country in the pitch dark, really get my kicks—"

"Oh, shut up," she snapped. The girl ran a hand through her light hair with an exasperated huff before leaning against the screen again. "Are all boys so tactlessly sarcastic, or is it just you? You could try to make it a little less obvious, you know, but I mean hey, whatever f—"

"Julia. Focus. Please," Roy pleaded from below, clasping his hands in mock prayer to the girl above him. He craned his neck trying to catch Julia's eyes as she huffed again and crossed her arms tightly across her chest.

"Alright, fine. _What_?" she responded testily, raising her eyebrows.

Roy sighed. _Maybe she's right, maybe I really do need to learn some tact. . . NO! That would make me a tactless moron if she were right, and I'm NOT. . . Well not a moron, that is. URG, I swear, girls are gonna be the death of me. . ._ Roy sighed, going limp. Julia always knew how to guilt him into feeling like an idiot.

A rebellious whisper in the back of his mind tried to tell conscious-Roy that there was no feeling involved, that he _was_ an idiot, but he quashed it viscously.

His attention was drawn back to Julia, who was looking at him with unveiled impatience. Roy drew his shoulder's up and straightened his spine. A slightly childish smirk appeared on his lips.

"Julia, would you do me the honor of going on a date with me tomorrow afternoon?"

"What time?"

Roy twitched at the terse response.

"I don't know, around three?"

"Where are we going?"

He twitched again. _At least she sounds like she's actually considering it seriously_.

"I—I don't kn— it's a surprise!" he retorted, the corner's of his mouth lifting again.

Julia stared down at Roy impassively. He felt himself break out in a light sweat as those hard eyes stared down at him in consideration.

Once he lost the smirk to his nervousness, Julia felt her eyes begin to soften. Roy was notorious among the teenager's (and the families of teenage girls) out here in the East as being a bit a wannabe-playboy-in-training with some slight over-confidence issues. But Julia could see the traces of genuine apprehension and, dare she say it, _shyness_ creeping into his expression. She knew there was a genuine person under all that façade.

So she decided then and there that it would be her job to uncover it.

"Alright."

Roy nearly fell over in both surprise and happiness; quite the flummoxing emotional soup. His entire face lit up in a smile of pure joy.

Then he brought a fist to his mouth and coughed slightly. When the hand was returned, the slightly weak-looking smirk was back in place.

_First thing I do is get rid of that smirk. . . Well, maybe not the smirk itself, but DEFINITELY the fake arrogant confidence behind it. After all, it's not the smirk's fault that it's so cute. . . GAH, focus!_

She blinked. Roy was still looking up at her expectantly with that _damned smirk_.

"This better be worth my time, Roy Mustang!" she huffed as she closed the window, catching it just before a slam. Julia watched Roy grin and scamper away into the darkness. His chuckle didn't go unnoticed either, as she quietly closed the window all of the way.

Julia flopped back onto her bed with yet another huff. She felt like this was a clichéd . . . _thing_, falling for the "bad boy" that lived down the road (which was probably as close as you could get to "next door" out here) but she couldn't help but be slightly apprehensive about tomorrow.

But at this point, she was just worried about trying to fall back asleep, as disgruntled as she was.

All the while hoping that he hadn't seen her blush when he had smiled up at her with that _freaking_ smirk.

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_**Author's Note: Ahh, yes, this one just attacked me. It took about an hour and a half to write, it's unbetaed and for all I know, utter crap. However, I thought I'd post it anyway for everyone's enjoyment. Please review!!! (Sorry for any unintentional typos, point 'em out and I'll fix them soon)**_

_**I'm making this a series of a currently unkown size, so give me your input. Flying by the seat of my pants on this one... There WILL be longer chapters when continued. **_

_**~SCM**_

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